[9] Pandit has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, for his contributions to the trade and industry in 2008 by the Government of India.

When Pandit was 16 years old, he moved to the United States[13] to attend Columbia University[17] for his undergraduate program and, in 1976, earned his B.S.

[4] In 2005, after more than two decades with Morgan Stanley, Vikram Pandit decided to leave the firm along with John Havens after being passed over by Philip J.

[22][23] In March 2006, Pandit and John Havens, along with Guru Ramakrishnan (former global head of trading, technology and new products in the equities group at Morgan Stanley), started the hedge fund Old Lane LLC.

Pandit was strongly supported by then interim chairman of Citigroup Robert Rubin,[26] the effective successor to Chuck Prince.

On 11 February 2009, Pandit testified to Congress that he had declared to his board of directors, "My salary should be $1 per year with no bonus until we return to profitability.

"[27][28] He also struck an apologetic tone for letting the bank consider completing the purchase of a private jet plane after receiving some $45 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.

[30][31][32] After posting five consecutive quarterly profits, Citigroup in May 2011, announced $23.2m retention award to Pandit making him one of the highest paid CEOs.

[35] His co-chairing of Davos 2012 was criticized,[36] with Mike Mayo, an analyst with Crédit Agricole in New York remarking: "What kind of signal does that send, that the bank that was the worst-performing in our country over the last decade and whose stock price is still down significantly since he took over, is the ambassador for our financial industry?

[46] It was reported in May 2013 that Pandit and Hari Aiyar, another Indian executive, were acquiring a 3 percent equity stake in JM Financial and launching a $100 million fund to invest in distressed assets.